


Delicate Pleasures

by TheLionInMyBed



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Abandonment Issues, Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Gallows Humor, Inappropriate Stoicism, M/M, Poor Life Choices, Poor Tactical Decisions, Romantic Decapitations, Sauron's Sexy Conlang, Swordplay, Werewolves, intimacy issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-29
Updated: 2016-05-24
Packaged: 2018-06-05 06:43:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6693673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLionInMyBed/pseuds/TheLionInMyBed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In all Beleriand, chill Himring is the last place most would go for comfort. Fewer still would seek it in the arms of their crippled, kinslaying cousin. But Fingon has always had more courage than sense, has always loved a challenge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Изысканные удовольствия](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10383324) by [rio_abajo_rio](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rio_abajo_rio/pseuds/rio_abajo_rio)



> "Wars are not favourable to delicate pleasures" - J.R.R. Tolkien 
> 
> (...this was not what he meant)

“We did not expect you, my lord,” said Maedhros Fëanorion.

That much was evident; he had been gone the better part of the day on a ‘hunting trip’ with half his household, and returned grimy, exhausted and covered head to toe in gore. His face did not exactly fall when he found Fingon waiting for him in the courtyard, but his smile was very wooden.

“I had hoped for a welcome less chilly than your fortress," Fingon said, a little testily. “If it’s inconvenient I can come back some other decade.” It had been a long and wearying ride from Hithlum and his escort had already gone to avail themselves of such comforts as Himring could provide. He could have gone with them but he’d wanted to see the look on his cousin’s face when he found him waiting for him. More fool him.

“No. Please,” Maedhros said, sounding chagrined. He dismounted and an attendant hurried over to help with the shield strapped to his right arm. “We’re very glad to see you. I’d embrace you but-” he gestured to his bloody armour.

“What’s a little gore between friends?” Fingon said, stepping into his arms. His clothes were travelstained enough that it made little difference

Maedhros did not flinch or go still as he might once have done - if anyone was uncomfortable, it was Fingon who was not as prepared for the cold, hard press of steel plating as he should have been. He did not mind it past the initial shock; it felt good to hold something real and sharp and solid in his arms, something that would not vanish when he looked away.

“What brings you out so far from civilisation?” Maedhros said at last, releasing him and stepping back. “Is all well?”

They both knew that Fingon usually came to frozen Himring because, while he had absolute trust in Maedhros’ ability to care for his lands, his brothers and his people, he had very little faith in his ability to care for himself. But Fingon could say that aloud no more than he could admit the real reason for his visit. “Adventure!” he lied cheerfully. “Hithlum is so frightfully peaceful right now and I have a reputation to maintain. Out here in the borderlands there are battles to be had and glory to be won!”

“You’re a day late,” Maedhros said, gesturing to the bodies strapped to the backs of their saddles. “If you’d like I can release them and give them back their weapons.”

“That’s the beauty of Beleriand; there are always more orcs.” One of them twitched, testing its bonds, and Fingon’s hand went to the hilt of his sword.

“They’re well secured,” said Maedhros. “Have you rested? Tuluspen will have a room prepared and a bath drawn if she hasn’t already. I’m sorry but I have to see to the interrogations before I can entertain you.”

“That sounds perfectly entertaining to me,” said Fingon. “Which way to the dungeons?”

“You’re ridiculous,” Maedhros said. “I _have_ missed you.”

***

The dungeons weren’t dark or dank but they were no less grim than the rest of the great, brooding fortress. The view Himring commanded of the wild surrounding hills was lovely but there was very little else to take pleasure in. It was a good thing Turgon couldn’t see it; he had drawn up the plans but his version had had a good deal more decorative stonework and a three tiered fountain in the courtyard. Fingon stifled the thought - he had come here to avoid dwelling on his brother. He had come to see his cousin who, while more like his mother than his father, still had the Fëanorian flare for the dramatic and so, in his self-imposed exile at the edge of the world, had taken no half measures that might have allowed him to be comfortable there. Fingon might have found it funny if it wasn’t so sad.

Interrogating the prisoners turned out to consist of sitting in the room adjoining their cell and being very quiet. It was a relief - Fingon had not expected harsh treatment but disallowing it was not a conversation he wanted to have with Maedhros - though he’d assumed they would at least interact with them.

“Aren’t we going to ask any questions?” he asked, putting his feet up on the table, determined to enjoy all the freedoms that being away from court allowed.

“We can if you’d like; you might learn some new curses to shock your father with.” Maedhros had washed his face and removed his helm and gauntlet though still wore a mail hauberk. Fingon tried and failed not to notice how nicely the silvery steel went with his eyes. “They won’t tell us anything useful though. They fear their master more than they could ever fear us and using reason or kindness- well you’ve seen all the good that does.”

“So what are we doing here?”

“Waiting. We can play if you promise not to be too noisy about it,” Maedhros said, indicating a backgammon board upon the table. “The point is not to disturb them too much.”

Fingon swept up the dice and rolled them once, twice, thrice, to check they weren’t weighed, the bone warm and smooth beneath his fingers. “You always win.”

“Because I always cheat,” Maedhros said, setting out the tokens. “Now that I have a handicap you might stand a chance.”

They played in silence but for the quiet tap of counters against the wood of the board and the chattering rattle of the dice. Fingon cheated - handicap or not, Maedhros was certainly doing the same - and the game swiftly dissolved into seeing who could get away with the most audaciously improbable rolls, and then dissolved further into who could best keep a straight face. They had not quite resorted to throwing tokens at each other when the game was halted by voices leaking around the corner, speaking a language Fingon did not understand but recognized all too well.

He opened his mouth but Maedhros shushed him, head cocked, ragged ears twitching. There were three orcs speaking, one male, all bitter and unhappy to the point that the conversation was punctuated by sporadic snarls and the impact of fists against flesh.

They sat listening to that harsh, ugly language for what felt like hours but was probably only minutes. Fingon distracted himself by tracing Maedhros’ profile with his eyes in place of hands; the sharp, crooked nose, his brow set in a frown of concentration, the tight line of his lips.

Finally, when the words had ceased and there was only the sound of violence, Maedhros relaxed. “There’s been some linguistic drift since last I heard it but less than I would have thought. No doubt Sauron has worked to forestall it; he dislikes untidiness.”

“How much of it do you speak?”

“Enough. I can beg very prettily when it’s called for.” Fingon must have made some sound at that for Maedhros turned back to face him fully and placed a hand upon his shoulder. “Fingon, I’m joking - nothing about the Black Speech is pretty. Oh, don’t pull that face.  No, Sauron was a great admirer of Father’s Tengwar and I think he enjoyed the opportunity to lecture someone who could _appreciate_ his work. Some days I almost wished for the pliers.”

“What did they say?”

“Much about myself, my soldiers and each other that I don’t care to repeat. And that they’ll miss their rendezvous with their master’s second war party, in an abandoned Sindar settlement some twelve miles north of here. We’ll set an ambush for them tomorrow. You’ll have your adventure after all, cousin.”

“You needn’t be the one to do this.”

“I enjoy a fight no less than you. Well, perhaps a _little_ less.”

Fingon shook his head and gestured to where the prisoners still fought and growled like beasts. “Others in your service could learn the language.” He would have thought it self-evident that it was not wise for Maedhros to spend any more time than he had to in a dungeon, in the company of orcs.

“I can picture the look on Sauron’s face if he found out I was teaching it to my people,” Maedhros said, gathering up the scattered counters. “He’d scarcely even mind the information we got in exchange. Dinner should be served soon, if you wish to change. I need to have the prisoners separated.”

***

Dinner was venison stewed with mushrooms, served with flatbread and wild greens. It was plain fare but good and the dark beer served with it was even better.

They ate with the rest of the household in the great, high ceilinged hall. It was a merry gathering as such things went in Himring for, while their victory was not a significant one, it was a victory all the same. His cousin sat the leader of his scouts at his left - Fingon had the place of honour at his right - and most of the conversation was taken up with planning the morrow’s raid. Fingon joined it with enthusiasm, making up for his unfamiliarity with the terrain with his experience of half a hundred battles like it. Always though he kept half an eye on Maedhros to be sure that he ate enough, did not force too many smiles, did not worry at his empty sleeve. He was his cousin’s friend and not his mother and surely not his wife but was still relieved to see he cleared his plate and did not drink or fidget overmuch.

When the plans were set and the scout had bowed and taken her leave, Maedhros turned to him and said, “There. I promise to be entertaining now.”

A servant offered Fingon a bowl of autumn pears and he speared one upon the point of his dagger - it was an unnecessary flourish but the knife was new and he was very pleased with it. “And how do you propose to do that?”

Maedhros raised his eyebrows and helped himself to an apple more prosaically. “Well you can put that away; I don’t have enough fingers to risk at knife games and this is a nice table besides.”

“Why else did I come to the lawless north?” Fingon said around a mouthful of fruit, flipping the blade from hand to hand.  

Maedhros leant back out of the range of flying blades and flying juice. “So that your father couldn’t scold you for your table manners? I’ve seen orcs eat with more grace.”

“If we dressed one of the prisoners in my clothes and sent it back to court would anyone notice?” Fingon made sure to chew with his mouth open. The pear was tart and too crisp for it to be truly disgusting but it was enough to make Maedhros wrinkle his nose.

“The temperament would be much the same. And the smell.” He took a bite of the apple and chewed thoughtfully. His tongue flicked out over his lower lip and Fingon wondered that he had ever thought Himring chilly when suddenly he was sweating in his tunic. “Only the hair might give it away,” Maedhros said at last, setting the apple down to tug one of Fingon’s gold-threaded braids.

He was still struggling to find an intelligent response when Tuluspen, the steward, approached the table and he was forced to quickly close his mouth and swallow. “Does my lord wish to play?” she asked. The plates were all but cleared away and a few of the assembled host had taken out pipes and lutes and drums. “We would be honoured if you would grace us with a song for we’ve long heard stories of your skill.”

Fingon did not need to guess which stories. “Perhaps some other time,” he demurred. “Maglor visited recently, did he not?” A guess, but a safe one. “My ability, such as it is, will seem all the poorer for for the comparison.”

“My cousin is too modest,” Maedhros said, when Tuluspen opened her mouth to protest. “If only when it comes to music. Still, we have much to speak of, family matters. Please excuse us.” He scraped his chair back and, relieved, Fingon followed him from the hall.

“Do you play at all now?” Maedhros asked when they were outside in the open courtyard beneath the stars.

“Of course. But not for an audience that I know is thinking only of the mountain.”

“Tuluspen has more tact than to say it to your face but she thinks it all very romantic,” Maedhros said, finishing his apple and flicking the core away into the dark. “She’d probably consider a hand a fair trade to be cradled in your strong arms while you whispered tender words of comfort in her ear.”

The wind was keen and Fingon wrapped his arms about himself. “More muttered curses than words of comfort, I fear. You were bleeding like a stuck pig.”

“Such a honeyed tongue, it’s no wonder she finds you charming. You must bring her back some token from tomorrow’s hunt, wildflowers perhaps, or the head of an orc captain. Women like such things.”

Fingon snorted as though their jests were not dancing about the truth. He was more drunk than he had thought or he would not have danced closer still; “How is it possible that you remain unmarried?”

“My brothers are bad enough; I daren’t risk more children. You, dear cousin, will not wed either if you restrict your acts of chivalry to grumpy cripples.”

“To be fair, you weren’t a cripple until after the act.”

“Are you saying I was grumpy? Unkind, Fingon!”

“Grumpy or not, I would rather rescue you than a hundred blushing maidens.” He said it with more sincerity than he’d intended. The drink, the sudden, awful loneliness that had driven him from Hithlum, Maedhros’ hand tugging at his braids, whatever the reason it was harder than usual to guard his tongue.

“Well you’ve won my hand, if not in marriage,” Maedhros said, as though he hadn’t noticed Fingon’s tone. “I hope you keep it somewhere safe.”

He had been waiting for the best time to say it for two centuries. There would never be a best time. His brother was gone, his sister, his niece, and Maedhros he had once thought lost as well. He could not leave it unsaid. “This isn’t a jest.”

“I assure you I’m being serious; I was very attached to that hand.” Maedhros frowned though and his tone became more sober. “What are you trying to say?”

“Only that I love you.”

“As I love you, cousin.” There was a careful emphasis on the last word, a gentle warning.

When had Fingon ever let warnings dissuade him? “No. Not like that. Remember our uncle’s manse in Tirion? When we would wait for Telperion’s waxing to swim in the fountain in the courtyard? The silver beaded on your skin and I thought-”

“You were a child,” Maedhros said sharply. “We were both children.”

“Then. Not now.” Fingon knew it sounded childish even as he said it.

“No,” said Maedhros. His good humour was gone and now he spoke as though deeply weary. “I suppose not. It meant nothing, Fingon. I was older and - if you will pardon my vanity - handsome then. An infatuation was understandable.”

“You are handsome to me still.”

Maedhros laughed, a sudden, harsh bark of sound that raised the hairs on Fingon’s neck and set the dogs in the kennels howling. He clamped his left hand to his mouth to silence himself, biting down upon the knuckles. “You say it with such sincerity,” he said when he was master of himself again. “I almost believe you.”

Pity smothered passion like dirt upon a flame and, while Fingon’s affection had not wavered in the aftermath of Thangorodrim, he had thought himself free of the roiling desire that had lived beneath his skin in Tirion and made his dreams a torment of copper hair and cool grey eyes.

That had been a vain hope. It wasn’t that Fingon couldn’t see the scars, the crooked nose, the shattered cheekbone. They simply did not seem to matter; Maedhros was as strong now as he had ever been in Tirion, as fierce and calculating and brilliantly charming. His eyes were silver yet and his hair, if short, was just as red. Fingon loved him still and wanted him with an intensity that made his chest ache. “I wouldn’t lie to you,” he said. “Not about that.”

“Then you’re lying to yourself. This is foolish, Fingon. Foolish and cruel.”

Fingon’s temper roused at that. “ _I’m_ cruel? I tell you that I love you and you-”

“Don’t,” Maedhros hissed. “ _Don’t_.”

Fingon grit his teeth, mulish in the face of that sudden vehemence. The pain would come later but for now it was like a wound taken upon the field, one he could see bleeding but scarcely even felt. He needed Maedhros now more than ever and he had thought- what _had_ he thought?

A hand in his hair, a sidelong smile, a shared joke three centuries old. His name said with a laugh, said like a prayer, “ _Fingon, if you love me, if you have ever loved me-_ ”

He had. And he’d thought Maedhros loved him back.

He had certainly not thought he would be angry.

But it was not anger, Fingon realised. He knew Maedhros’ anger and it was a cold, hard thing, forged into something he could wield. Now his ears were flat against his head and his left hand was closed about his right wrist and, more than anything, he looked afraid. He looked desperate, as he had a hundred years ago when he had begged for something Fingon would not, could not give.

Fingon clenched his fists and fought back his own hurt and anger. There would be time to feel that later. “I’m sorry,” he said and meant it. Maedhros pretended so well most of the time that even Fingon forget sometimes how sharp the edges were, how raw the wounds. He wanted to reach out, to take his hand so he must leave his wrist alone, but he knew how well that was likely to be received. “I shouldn’t have expected- I know you’re not-”

Maedhros had always been too good at reading him and had always been too stubborn for his own good. “Not _what_?” he said and now he did look angry.

“I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“Some words you can’t take back.” Maedhros turned and stalked off across the moonlit cobbles. “Come on then,” he called back when Fingon did not follow.

“Where?”

“Do you want me or not?” He said it like a challenge.

Despite the shadows that cobwebbed the fort’s passages, there was no danger of losing him; his boots rang cold and hard upon the flags and his mail rustled like serpent-scales in the dark.

Some part of Fingon, the boy he should have left behind in Valinor, still hoped that maybe Maedhros was leading him to some hidden garden, some elegant tower from which the stars would look close enough to touch. But Maedhros stopped at the training yard and ducked into a squat, low building only to come back out with two swords tucked under his arm. He tossed one to Fingon, who was forced to snatch it from the air lest it strike him in the face.

He should have been annoyed or disappointed. The boy might have been. The man held up the sword and made a few practice cuts to get a feel for its weight and reach. If this was what he thought it was - some confused attempt to communicate what Maedhros did not know how to say - then good. And if it was a chance to salve his wounded heart by hitting him with a heavy piece of metal, even better.

The swords were not live steel but had enough weight to them that a misplaced blow would shatter a knee or stove a skull. “This seems unwise,” Fingon said because someone ought to. Sometimes he liked to pretend that the worst thing about the aftermath of Thangorodrim was those times when he was forced to be the sensible one.

“You wanted to be entertained,” Maedhros said, lifting his blade in salute.

The air was sweet with the smell of fresh sawdust and old blood and Fingon stepped into the ring to face him with hurt and hope all churning in his gut. He took up his stance and tipped his sword and let the rising tide of battle lust wash everything away.

The first bout was not an exciting one. Fingon stepped in, cutting upwards from a low guard  - not, in truth, moving as fast as he could have - and Maedhros rapped him across the knuckles before the blow could land. The pain jangled up his arm and he cursed and dropped the sword. An edged blade would have taken off his fingers.

“You are disarmed,” Maedhros said and laughed, as strange and wild as before.

“I had forgotten how unfair your reach is,” Fingon groused, picking up his sword with tingling fingers.  

“You forgot to take the cripple seriously. Try again.”

So Fingon did. This time he came in fast and hard, stepping in too close for Maedhros to play games with distance and slamming their swords together with a chime that was incongruously musical. Before Maedhros could disengage or try anything clever, Fingon let go the hilt with his left hand and caught Maedhros’ sword by the blade, twisting it out and down. Maedhros tried to jerk it back but could hardly free a hand to pull the same trick himself so went to kick him.

Stepping back, Fingon swatted him across the thigh, hard enough that it would surely bruise. “My point,” he said.

“And you claim that I’m unfair,” Maedhros said but he was grinning. They both were. Fingon’s mouth was dry, his body tense and shivering with the thrill of combat, with the pleasure, the pain, the glory of it all. Even if this - the harsh rasp of breath, the grunts of pain and exertion, the thrust and slide of steel on steel on flesh - was all there could ever be between them, still he wanted it.

The match was fairly even; Maedhros had the advantage of reach and Fingon was less used to fighting left handed opponents but then Maedhros was barely used to being left handed himself. They fought and the stars wheeled above them and Fingon’s sword arm burned and the air clogged in his lungs like water. He would have bruises himself the next morning and the thought of them was a pleasing one. Maedhros was panting too, his hair dark and tufted with sweat, a flush high on his cheekbones. He looked as close to his limits as Fingon surely was and Fingon still didn’t know what he was trying to prove. “Once more?” he said and Maedhros nodded.

Fingon adjusted his grip on the slick hilt of his sword and came on again.

They both stepped in too close, so that their swords were pressed together, trapped between their bodies and Fingon could feel the heat of him beneath the cold weight of his mail.

Maedhros let go his weapon and, while Fingon kept his own, there was no way to bring it to bear. They strained there, breath harsh in each other’s ears, hands fisted in clothing, neither giving ground. Fingon was sure he would win out; the difference in their heights was his advantage here and he had two hands besides. And then Maedhros closed his mouth over his ear - wet heat and the sharp brush of teeth - and Fingon faltered. Maedhros hooked his ankle and tugged it neatly out from under him.

Hitting the ground with Maedhros’ weight atop him wasn’t enough to slow him, he knew half a hundred ways to escape a pin. But none of them would help him when there was a dagger pressed to his throat. Not, he realised, blunted like the swords but his own, plucked from his belt.

“Shall we play knife games after all?” he said lightly - he hoped he said it lightly. His stomach clenched and twisted with something that was not fear.

Maedhros inclined his head, just a little. He did not remove the knife; if anything, the pressure at Fingon’s throat increased. “Was that what you wanted?” he said. He looked amused and angry and afraid, all at once.

“What do _you_ want?” Fingon said.

Maedhros did not answer him with words. He leant forwards and Fingon knew a moment’s panic as the knife pricked harder at his skin but then Maedhros pressed their mouths together and all fear, all thought vanished. He smelt of sweat and steel and the apple he had just eaten, and tasted of it too.

The kiss was an ugly, bruising thing and, if Maedhros was vicious, Fingon was no less so. It was not what he had pictured, not what he had wanted in peaceful Aman but that life and that boy were dead and gone. Unable to help himself he strained up, barely feeling the cold press of metal at his throat, the whisper-pain as it broke the skin, the welling of the smallest bead of blood.

The knife hit the ground beside his head with a muted _thunk_ and then Maedhros’ hand was tangled in his braids, tugging his head back so he could reach his throat to kiss and worry at the cut that he had left there.

“You look well upon your back,” Maedhros told his collarbone.

“Keep me there then. If you can,” Fingon said and, though he struggled, did not struggle hard, relishing the pressure of a body atop his, relishing, if he was entirely honest, the violence of it all.

Maedhros pressed him down into the dirt, his right arm against Fingon’s chest to hold him in place while his left hand slipped lower, drawing lines of heat across his belly and then lower still, to fumble at the lacings of his breeches.

“Let me,” Fingon said, tugging at the knot with, if anything, even less dexterity. Finally, between their three hands, they got the tie undone and Maedhros, without further ceremony, seized his cock and drew it out. He traced the length of it and then closed his fingers around the shaft, firm but careful, like a man testing the heft of a new sword.

Fingon moaned, embarrassingly loud in the night-still courtyard, and bucked his hips impatiently but Maedhros paid him no mind. There was hunger in his gaze but no lust. It was the same sharp, calculated look he had worn throughout their fight. “You want this?” he said, perhaps a little doubtfully. “Truly?”

“ _Yes_.”

Tightening his grip in a way that made Fingon whine again, Maedhros lowered his head to run his tongue over the taut muscle of Fingon’s stomach. His hand worked slowly - far too slowly - as he dipped lower to suck a bruise upon the sensitive skin of his thigh.

Fingon’s hands came up to fumble, desperate, at Maedhros’ clothing for he was still fully dressed, still, ridiculously, wearing that mail hauberk. It was cold against Fingon’s bared skin and rustled with every movement and Fingon would have torn the links apart with his bare fingers had he the strength, to get at the warm skin beneath.

Maedhros let him take off his belt and sat back so that Fingon might drag the mail coat over his head, but when Fingon went to remove the gambeson he wore beneath he pulled away.

“Let me-” Fingon began.

“No,” Maedhros said flatly, swatting his hands aside.

“I want to touch you,” Fingon said, reaching for him again.

“ _No_.”

He wanted, very badly, to curl his fingers in Maedhros’ hair, to rip off that blasted jacket, to take him in hand and tear the same desperate noises from his throat that Maedhros had forced from him. Instead he dug his nails into the dirt beneath him and strove to hold his silence as Maedhros leant over him once more. This time he did not feignt or tease but went straight for the fatal blow and took him in his mouth.

It was his arrow striking home in the chink of an enemy’s armour, the soaring, muscle-clenching leap of his horse clearing a gorge, the shuddering relief of a parry skilfully made. It was thrilling and dangerous and perfect.

Maedhros went about pleasuring him with the same strange blend of careful practicality and fierce intensity with which he went to war. Slow flicks of his tongue from base to tip coupled with precise strokes of the hand. Just the slightest threat of teeth to make Fingon flinch and curse and struggle, helpless, against the firm press of his right arm.

He could not help but touch him - not to hold his head or catch at his hair, even with his thoughts so fogged Fingon knew better than that - but his fingers skimmed over the rough cloth upon his shoulders to rest where it gave way to the fine skin of his neck. Maedhros made a noise in the back of his throat but did not pull away or stop the slow movement of his tongue so Fingon thought he did not mind it.

And then Maedhros looked up at him with cold fire in his eyes and his mouth stretched about Fingon’s cock-

His release struck him like a blow, a bust of white behind closed eyelids. After, Fingon lay upon the ground like one dead while Maedhros rose to his knees above him. He turned his head and spat, then wiped his mouth with a shaking hand. “Was that entertaining?”

“Best of five?” Fingon said lazily. He reached for him but Maedhros shook his head and climbed to his feet to shrug his mail back on.

“You’re ridiculous,” he said. “I- I’ve missed you.” It was not like him to stumble over words and Fingon wondered what he had intended to say.

Now that they were still, Fingon felt the cold once more and set about putting his own clothing back in order. “Should we continue someplace warmer? It seems I have a favour to return.”

“I was already in your debt. Besides, those orcs won’t ambush themselves,” Maedhros said. He stepped back once and then again as Fingon struggled to rise too, on legs not yet ready to support him. “Well, actually they might. Who knows with orcs? Still, we must be ready. Get some sleep.”

“But-”

“Good evening, cousin,” Maedhros said and turned and walked away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some half-arsed author's commentary [here](http://thelioninmybed.tumblr.com/post/143587425877/delicate-pleasures)!
> 
> The talented and incredibly generous Idah illustrated the [interrogation scene](http://idahlrillion.tumblr.com/post/149409213044/for-the-writer-appreciation-week-a-little-drawing)!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big thanks to [EmilyEnrose](http://archiveofourown.org/users/emilyenrose) for the beta and for encouraging all my worst impulses (and absconding with my ~~silmarils~~ semicolons), and to everyone else on tumblr who leapt into action when I mentioned needing someone to bounce terrible ideas for elfsex off of.

“How did you sleep?” Maedhros asked him at breakfast the next morning, his smile bland, his voice level. Fingon was more irked than disappointed. He was certainly not surprised.

“Very well,” he said. His bed, when he’d found it, had been large and richly covered with the pelts of wolf and bear. It was not cold - someone had left a warming pan beneath the covers - and there were too many pillows for it to feel empty. It did though. Upon the Ice they’d all slept huddled together, sharing the same furs, Aredhel snoring in his ear, Idril kicking in her sleep, Turgon’s arm slung across his back while their father sat above them, watchful, fretting. He would have given much, just then, to be back there with his cold and his hunger and his family all about him. “Yourself?”

“Very little,” said Maedhros, helping himself to porridge. Fingon searched his face for some flicker of what had burnt in him the night before and found nothing. “I stayed up to keep our guests company.”

It took a moment for Fingon to make the leap and then: “The orcs?” Disbelief was all that kept him in his seat. Bitter enough that he had been abandoned but to be abandoned in favour of such company?

“The same. Some of what I heard may be useful,” Maedhros said as though they had no greater concern than planning for a raid. As though he had not beaten Fingon bloody the night before, or sucked his cock. “They’ll have some of Sauron’s wolves with them - five or so - which shouldn’t change our strategy in principle but-”

Fingon’s hands clenched on the armrests of his chair so hard that the wood creaked. “Maedhros?”

“Fingon?”

“ _Be silent_.”

“As you wish, my lord.” Maedhros’ bland expression did not change and that only made Fingon angrier.

The hall, filled as it was with hungry soldiers, was too noisy for anyone to have overheard that outburst but Tuluspen caught the look upon his face and bustled over with a distraction. Her message, something about mice getting into the linens, was likely fabricated and certainly did not need a lord’s attention but when his cousin stood and bowed and begged his leave Fingon did not detain him.

They avoided each other thus until it was time to mount up and ride out to face their foes. “The north is yours,” Maedhros said, tightening his horse’s girth. “Do you wish to go over the plan of engagement again before-”

“I know my own part well enough,” said Fingon though there were, he thought, significant flaws in the strategy they had laid out the previous evening; most prominently it did not involve leaving his cousin staked out for the orcs. But that thought gave him little satisfaction, only an unwelcome reminder as to why Maedhros was so damnably difficult in the first place. “They’re in safe hands,” he said.

Maedhros laughed and clapped his shoulder, steel prosthetic ringing against Fingon’s pauldron. “Keep an eye on him,” he told Ýreth. “If he tries to do anything heroic, sit on him.”

“I don’t take orders from you, my lord,” she said, though she waited until he was out of earshot to say it. She was one of Fingon’s own soldiers, part of his escort from Hithlum, and bore little love for Fëanorians. “You’ll have to sit on him yourself.” Her comrade Ninaeldis elbowed her in the ribs and she subsided with a smirk.

***

They would be outnumbered two to one; with surprise on their side, not to mention better discipline and equipment, the odds were in their favour. They would have been even better had the footing been sure enough to bring their cavalry to bear. As it was, with a battlefield likely choked with rubble, they left their horses at the treeline. While some steeds had crossed from Aman with their masters, many were of Sindar stock and the sight or scent of werewolves would panic them anyway.

Their numbers dwindled as they went, squads splitting away so that they could approach the encampment from all sides at once and close the net. He did not see Maedhros leave this time because he was making a point not to look for it but once he’d gone Fingon wished that he had not been so stubborn. Argon had not said goodbye before he left them at Lammoth. Fingon told himself that this was not a battle but a skirmish and Maedhros was less bold than his brother had been. It did nothing for his mood save to ensure that his righteous anger was shot through with unease.

The woods must have been thinner when the Sindar lived there and brighter for a certainty. It was late enough in the year that every tree blazed like a candle, gold and red, and still their black trunks and the damp earth beneath made all seem dim and gloomy. Fingon glared at the dead leaves that crunched beneath his feet and tried not to think of Maedhros’ hair.

They almost missed the village for the trees which had grown up and over and through it, stone walls snared and toppled by vines and windows blinded by branches clawing their way in. The smell gave all away though; smoke from cook fires, the rankness of wargs and the fouler stench of Orc. It was like nothing Fingon had ever managed to put a name to - unwashed bodies, yes, and the suppuration of untreated wounds and uncleaned weaponry. But, beneath it all was hot metal and something musty, almost sweet.

He strung his bow, nodding to his archers to do the same, and began his search for the camp’s sentries. They had posted them but that was all that could be said. Fingon found them sheltered in the lee of a house with the roof caved in, three playing at dice while a fourth stared out into the trees with the one eye left to her. Fingon stayed still and watchful a long time before realising she was not looking for the approach of enemies but at a robin perched in the branches of a tree to his left. He put an arrow to his bow and drew back, while about him the woods thrummed with the tension as his soldiers drew their own strings taut.

A blackbird trilled to the west. The signal. Fingon loosed his shot just as his target’s head snapped round to look.

The orc fell twitching, his arrow and her scream lodged in her throat. Fingon notched another shaft and put it in the eye of a second orc, still standing despite the thicket of fletchings sprouting from his chest. They died no more easily than the Eldar did. “As swords are forged,” Maedhros had once said when Curufin asked how they were made. “That is a simile but only barely.”

The bird whistle came again and Fingon’s infantry advanced, picking their way between rubble, roots and corpses. Fingon was loath to hold back with the archers but while he was skilled with blades he was better still with bows. Instead they fired into the camp, flights of arrows that arched up and fell ahead of their own troops. They aimed for where the smoke was heaviest and soon screams and curses came floating up to join it.

Fingon signaled for one more volley and then for them to hold. Though he might not mind hitting Maedhros, he’d prefer not to kill one of his soldiers. His archers relaxed around him, whispering to each other in low voices. They at least were glad to miss the rest of the fighting.

And with that his part was over, unless some Orcs escaped. He’d agreed to the plan poring over maps in the relative comfort of Himring’s dining hall but now he regretted it. Dropping arrows from a distance was a coward’s way to fight. It was hardly fair that Maedhros got the glory or faced the risks alone. Fingon paced, dead leaves crunching beneath his boots, furious and fearful with no outlet to be found. He needed to strike something, Maedhros or an orc, he scarcely cared which but all this waiting was going to drive him mad. To do other than hold his position would be irresponsible, unforgivably so and yet-

From the camp came another scream, one he recognized as an elf’s voice, not an orc’s. He set aside his bow and drew his sword, for the comfort it provided, nothing more. Then came a sound that he did not recognize - a howl that sounded nothing like an orc or like a man, like no animal that he had ever heard. Maedhros had said there might be werewolves.

Fingon had never fought a werewolf.

If anything were to happen to him now, in a battle planned by a Fëanorian, the political consequences wouldn’t bear thinking about. So he didn’t think about them. “Ninaeldis, the command is yours. Hold our position and let no orcs escape. Hadlath, Ýreth, with me.”

“My lord,” said Ýreth, falling in behind him. “I don’t like to question your commands-”

“You _love_ to question my commands.” Fingon vaulted a wall and landed softly in the weeds upon the other side. “It’s why, after an age of loyal service, you’re not my father’s captain.”

“Perhaps. But you can’t think I speak for love of your cousin when I say he is not wrong. Let his soldiers take the risk-”

“We are of the ruling House of the Noldor. Should we hold back in fear from what my uncle’s children dare? Do you doubt my skill or your own?”

“You just want to wrestle a werewolf,” she muttered. Hadlath sniggered.

Fingon could not counter that and pretended that he had not heard. The sounds of battle grew louder and he saw figures darting about between the trees and shattered buildings, Fëanorian troops with dark cloaks wrapped over their bright mail and orcs in black iron and bare skin. Even when smoke and distance blurred their outlines it was easy to tell friend from foe; his cousin’s people moved together with swift, familiar grace while the orcs jittered and skittered, too fast, too slow, getting in each other’s way like ants turned from their heap. Though there were pockets of fighting, the foe were too disorganized for any real resistance. Surprise had done so much of their work for them that Fingon was almost disappointed.

And then a single orc came lurching from a ruined house towards him. It was unarmoured and he wondered if their attack had woken it from sleep. “Yield!” he cried to it without much hope for Morgoth’s creatures no more accepted quarter than they gave it.

It did not halt. Fingon held out his sword before him and flicked it over the orc’s clumsy attempt to force it aside. It could not stop its charge and its own momentum drove it onto his blade. He stepped in close so that it had no room to retaliate as it died, close enough to gag on the musty stink of it. It was a fight, but not a worthy one.

The howl came again, a haunting thing that made Fingon’s ears prick and the hairs stand up along his spine. He kicked the dead orc from his blade and ran on, Haldath and Ýreth following him less closely than before.

Fingon broke from the cover of the buildings into what might once have been the settlement’s market square. Now it was a field, paved with cracked grey stone and more of those blood red leaves. He paused there, looking about, hoping for the howl again or the attention of more orcs.

He did not wait more than a moment to find what he had sought.

A monstrous wolf, its fur aflame, came charging out of the smoke, bowling aside elves and orcs alike, howling out its pain and fury. Fingon had hunted wolves often enough but this creature was like no wolf that he had ever seen. Its hind legs were too long, its muzzle too short and it was larger than a horse. Fingon readied himself to meet it with a smile upon his lips. But then a voice called out - a voice he knew and loved too well - in the Black Speech of the Enemy. The wolf skidded to a halt so fast that Fingon had to shield his eyes from the dirt kicked up by its paws.

Maedhros stood on the other side of the clearing, Sauron’s words dripping from his tongue like poison, his sword red-slick with blood. The werewolf shook itself like a dog, embers scattering from its coat, and snarled. Its eyes were as flame and the noise it made was not that of an animal. There were words caught up in it, spoken with a throat not made for speech. Maedhros laughed and replied, his eyes no less bright, and the wolf howled with laughter of its own and ran him down.

Fingon could not close the distance fast enough but still he tried. Maedhros held out his free hand as though to ward it off, and the werewolf’s jaws closed upon his wrist. It did not have a face that could express confusion or surprise but its hesitation showed plainly enough. Then Maedhros drove his sword into its eye.

The wolf reared back, thrashing, all four paws scrabbling helpless at the ground. It did not let go of Maedhros and he did not let go his sword. Its spasms dragged him from his feet and dashed him to the ground.

It did not die quickly, but it would not or could not open its jaws and so there was a limit to the damage its death throes could do to anyone but his cousin. It might have been wiser for Fingon to stand back and let it spend its strength while peppering it with arrows but he was not wise, had never been wise. He leapt and caught the ruff of greasy fur about its neck and dragged himself atop it. That set the wolf thrashing even harder. Fingon was an excellent rider though, and its fur a sure handhold. It was easy, disappointingly easy, to plunge his sword down through its spine and end its struggles.

He hopped down from its back to find Maedhros attempting to force its mouth open, on his knees with his sword jammed like a lever between its teeth. “What are you _doing_?” he snarled when Fingon reached him. He was grazed and bloody-nosed but did not seem otherwise hurt. “You were supposed to hold the perimeter-”

“My soldiers have it,” Fingon said, adding his own strength to his cousin’s. Now that he had time to appreciate it the wolf’s stench was near unbearable: carrion and burning hair.

“What did I say about heroics? Stay out of the fighting!” Maedhros pulled his arm free and the wolf’s locked jaws snapped shut. His hand dangled oddly from his wrist, one of the straps torn, and he made a small sound of annoyance. “Curufin will have my head for this, if your father doesn’t take it first.”

“Do you truly think you can order me from the field?” He had been calm throughout the battle but now his blood was up, pounding in his ears like the Enemy’s war drums.

“No indeed, _my lord_ , for I am not crown prince and _my_ death will not-” His words ended in a yelp as Fingon threw him to the ground, his own body pressed atop him as a shield against the spear that went singing over their heads.

“Fingon, _get off me_ , my sword-” Maedhros said, struggling to get his feet under him and place himself between Fingon and the Orcs standing over them. Unfortunately, since Fingon was attempting to do much the same, neither had any success.

There were three of them but it was the woman that drew his attention, the one with the missing eye and his arrow still in her throat. Her breath was a gasping rattle and her smile was filmed with red as she drew back her sword. She should not have lived and yet she did. Fingon put up his own blade and levered himself onto his knees. He would get one blow and then he would be dead. Let it be a good one then.

The orc’s blade came down in a weak jab that still had all her weight behind it. He returned the thrust, angling his own sword so that hers was knocked offline - it missed his head by a hairsbreadth - and then he stabbed up, blade sliding through muscle and between ribs to pierce her lung. She made no sound but foam burst from her mouth, red like the seas about Alqualondë.

Maedhros punched the second orc in the knee, though perhaps that was the wrong word for it. He used his right hand and the broken straps only added more momentum to a blow that shattered the joint with all the force of a mace. The orc fell screaming and Maedhros smiled and answered it in its own tongue.

The third orc might have been the death of them but then Ýreth was there and she took off its head. She prodded the twitching carcass with her toe. “I hate to say I told you so, my lord, but-”

“Don’t lie,” said Fingon, leaping to his feet. “You live for such moments. Thank you but that will be all.” She bowed and stepped back, not so far enough that she was out of earshot.

The crippled orc was struggling for a knife. Maedhros stepped down hard upon its hand and then placed his foot upon its throat. It scrabbled weakly at his boot. Maedhros shifted his weight. There was a gristly crunch and the struggles ceased. “You should not have come,” he said, eyes slipping from the corpse at his feet to the orc that Fingon had killed.

“You should not have left me.”

“Yes. Well. I owe you an apology. What I did was unforgivable. I should not have- I should have restrained myself.”

Hadlath had joined Ýreth and it was clear that both were eavesdropping. “I’m not angry over the _fight,_ as you well know,” Fingon snapped. “It’s what you did afterwards. If someone challenges you to a duel, you don’t have to accept. But if you do, you can’t just stab them and then walk away.”

“I’d say that’s exactly how it works, though I think that’s more a problem with your euphemism than-”

“ _Maedhros_.”

Chastened; “At the time it seemed the safest thing to do.”

“Safest for whom? Did you think to protect me from my own poor judgement? That noble impulse struck a little late. You should trust me to know my own mind.”

“Fingon, it’s not _your_ judgement I doubt. I’ve never known a man more sure of himself and if you say you want-” his eyes flicked to the soldiers about them. Hadlath had turned away but Ýreth was smirking quite openly “-what you want, then I shall take you at your word.”

“Then what?” Fingon stepped in, away from the onlookers, forcing Maedhros to stumble back. “If you’d told me last night you didn’t feel the same, I might have believed you. But you said everything _but_ that and then- well, if you thought you made a demonstration of your antipathy I don’t know what to tell you.”

“I did not handle that as well as I might have.”

“You have a gift for understatement. And for avoiding difficult questions. Do you desire- do you desire a rematch or not?”

“Can we not discuss this later?” More of their soldiers were gathering about them now, looking to them for orders. Fingon could not find it in himself to care.

“No.”

“I cannot make you happy,” Maedhros hissed, a trifle desperately.

“If I’d wanted to be _happy_ I’d have stayed in Valinor. I crossed the Ice for war and glory, and you still have not given me an answer.”

Maedhros did not speak. He stepped past Fingon and brought his sword down in sudden savagery upon the neck of the one-eyed orc. The body twitched, pale bone gleaming amongst the red ruin of the wound like pearls upon the shores of Elendë, and Maedhros hacked twice more until he had cut clean through. He stuck his sword into the corpse and lifted its severed head by the ragged tangle of its hair. The thin streamers of gore and sinew hanging from its neck danced delicately in the autumn breeze.

He held it out and Fingon couldn’t help it; he laughed. He knew he should not forgive so easily. But he thought of empty Nevrast and of standing upon a cold and windy shore watching a fire burn far away, of Elenwë and Argon and the dull, helpless look on Maglor’s face when Fingon had asked after his king. It would be foolish to draw this out. “I shall want the wildflowers too,” he said, looking into the orc’s unseeing yellow eye.

“You shall have them, of course.”

He took the head and turned it in his hands so that the tongue lolled from the bloody, open mouth. “It’s a start.”

***

There was more to be said than that but it was a conversation neither was inclined to start.

“Have you thought about commissioning some tapestries?” Fingon said instead, rocking back on his chair and looking up at the bare stone walls of Maedhros’ solar. The bouquet of dog violets and late honeysuckle upon the table did something to lift the gloom as did the orc’s head sitting beside it, still seeping enough to stain the petals a deep Fëanorian red.

“I have,” said Maedhros, pouring wine for them both. “But then Caranthir would pick apart the technique or Curufin would find a way to make it seem disrespectful to our grandmother’s memory. It’s not worth the arguments.”

“I had thought that you were all getting along better.” Their fingers brushed as Fingon accepted the goblet.

“Better, yes, but not well. Amras worries me most of all. He doesn’t reply to my letters and from what I’ve heard he is alone out in the wilds more often than not. I should have been there for him after Losgar but instead I rode away and left him to his grief. Even after I returned I was...distracted. I reach out to him now but the wound is scarred over and he wants nothing from me.”

Maedhros liked to think of himself as the sensible one. He wasn’t wrong exactly but being the most sensible of Fëanor’s haughty, quarrelsome brood was not as much of a distinction as he seemed to believe. “He feels guilty too,” Fingon said, in place of taking him by the shoulders and shaking him.

“He shouldn’t. There was nothing he could have done to- _Hah_.” Maedhros saw the trap and cut himself off. “I suppose you think you’re clever.”

“You’re shockingly predictable.” Fingon tipped his goblet. “Things are bad enough without self-flagellation.”

“It was much easier when I had Morgoth to take care of that for me. I’m sorry, I am dreary company. Surely things are better in the west. How fares your father? Your siblings?”

He’d known Maedhros would ask sooner or later but was still unprepared to answer. “Father’s well. My siblings are...” He stopped, not sure how to say it.

The look of ironic detachment Maedhros always affected when talking about himself softened abruptly. “Fingon? What happened?”

“They’re not- We don’t think they’re dead. We just don’t know where they are. We knew Turgon was planning something and then suddenly Nevrast was empty, a third of our people vanished. Aredhel and Idril too.” He took a long drink. “I can understand wanting to keep it secret - Manwë knows I want them to be safe. I just wish they’d trusted us enough to say farewell.”

Maedhros frowned and drummed the fingers of his left hand upon the table, in the space where his right might once have rested, nails clicking against the wood. He’d left the prosthetic off after the battle, the straps too damaged and his wrist too bruised to tolerate it. “You remember when we were children and Turgon decided to run away? I think the cat had a litter on his new robes and your mother said he shouldn’t have left them where she could get at them-”

“That _did_ happen but the time we lost him it was over a map,” Fingon said. “He’d been working on one of the coastline and Aredhel scribbled all over it but then he slapped her and so he was the one that Mother scolded.”

“That was it. He didn’t come down for dinner and, by the time your parents realised he was gone, it was too dark to find him. Then the next morning Celegorm got wind of it and rode off to track him down himself and of course we lost him too.”

“Your father blamed us for that.”

“He wasn’t upset about Celegorm - when he was that age we rarely had a week when he hadn’t run off somewhere - it was your mother saying we should ask Oromë for help finding them. _That_ set him off.”

“I remember being frightened at the time. I can’t believe I thought that was what his anger looked like.”

“He was peeved at worst, or something would have been on fire.” It had become easier to joke about such things over the years. “But my point was, we found Turgon three days later camped quite happily not ten miles away. He’d forgotten all about the argument and didn’t know why we were so upset.”

“That’s right. He’d taken all his surveying equipment with him and just wanted to show us the new map he’d made.”

“Only Turgon would run away from home with an alidade. It’s a cruel thing he’s done and you’ll be within your rights to choke him with his own plumb-line when he turns up. But he _will_ turn up. If nothing else he’s got Aredhel to keep him safe. She may have the least sense of the three of you - and that takes some doing - but there are few handier with a spear.”

“Thank you,” Fingon said. It helped more than he would have thought to be reminded that his siblings were not vanished from the world completely.

“Of course. Be assured that _I_ won’t be going anywhere,” Maedhros said. “Though only because if I abandoned my duties to found a hidden city of my own, I don’t think my brothers would handle it with half as much grace.”

Based on past experience, Fingon doubted they’d react at all but it would be monstrously cruel to say so. “I ‘handled’ it by abandoning my own duties and fleeing to the border to confess my undying love to my cousin.”

“ _Half_ cousin,” Maedhros said wryly. “Father was always very clear on that point.”

“I think if he’d foreseen this he’d have been a trifle less emphatic. So. We’re talking about it then?”

“Talking. Yes, I suppose.” Maedhros finished his wine, head tilted back to that Fingon could see the clean line of his throat as he swallowed. “But not here. We’re less likely to be disturbed in my own chambers and there will be no severed heads to stare at us.”

***

“We were supposed to talk,” Fingon said. He was sprawled upon his back, naked, his release drying upon his belly, while Maedhros sat fully clothed and seemingly composed upon the edge of the bed.

“Were we?” said Maedhros vaguely.

“Don’t think I have forgotten.” Fingon sat up and the oak bed frame squealed in complaint. “And, don’t mistake me, while I enjoy the attention I’d be just as happy returning the favour.”

“Just as happy? I shall have to do a better job.” Maedhros reached out to slide his hand up Fingon’s thigh. It was too soon but still he gasped and pressed into the touch, nerves singing.

And then he remembered himself and pulled away, indignant. “Stop trying to distract me! I may not be the quickest study but I shan't fall for the same trick _thrice_.”

Maedhros drew his hand back, not bothering to feign innocence. “You’ve seen me naked, Fingon. It’s not a stirring sight.”

“I didn’t get a good look, I was too distracted by the eagle and all the screaming. Now, if you were to let me look again-”

“ _Fingon_ ,” Maedhros said in the voice he reserved for talking to irresponsible younger siblings.

It was the last thing Fingon wanted to hear while lying naked and sticky in his bed. He dragged a scratchy woolen blanket - red, of course - up to cover himself. “If _you_ don’t want to do more than this then that’s- then I understand. I shan’t ask again. But if you don’t want to because you think _I_ don’t want to, well that’s ridiculous. I’ve wanted you as long as I’ve known how to want. If our fathers couldn’t come between us, if Losgar and Alqualondë, the Helcaraxë and Angband couldn’t put me off, do you think a little scarring would?” He reached up to touch the hollow ruin of Maedhros’ left cheek.

“More than ‘a little’.” Maedhros did not flinch away but looked as though he wished to. “It’s not about the scars. I know you well enough to know that.”

“Then what?”

“Are you asking for the truth? Last time that happened I asked you to kill me.”

“ _Maedhros_.”

Maedhros frowned and plucked at the pinned sleeve covering his right wrist. “You hold so much power over me already and I don’t want to-” he hesitated, considering. “Belong to you more than I already do.”

“Would that be so terrible? I would be yours in turn.”

“Easily said. You’ve never been a possession.” Maedhros opened his mouth as though he meant to say more, or to snatch back the words, and then closed it without speaking.

Though he had wanted honesty, Fingon had not expected it. It was not that Maedhros did not speak of Angband - he joked about it all too often - but he would, Fingon had thought, rather lose his other hand than admit that its tortures had affected him in any but the most superficial ways. “I wouldn’t- You know that I would never. I wouldn’t.”

“Wouldn’t hurt me? You _did_ cut off my hand.” Maedhros grinned and dropped the sleeve. “I do know that. And I trust you with my life, if not my limbs. That doesn’t make this any easier.”

“We can do this slowly. Or not at all if you don’t want-”

“No,” Maedhros said. “No, I think we must.” There was a queer look in his eyes, the same expression he wore when he gave orders upon the battlefield. Fingon found it terrifying and arousing in equal measure. “Kiss me.”

Still Fingon drew back. “You just said-”

“If I don’t let you touch me, if I _can’t_ let you touch me then he’s still winning.” He caught Fingon’s hand and pressed it to his chest.

His tunic was thick wool and yet Fingon thought he could feel the warmth rising from his skin and the thrum of his pulse. He could not bear to pull away but said, “I don’t want to lie with you just to spite the Enemy.”

“Can you think of a better cause?”

“Love.”

“Oh. _That_.”

“Do you even desire me?” Fingon had not thought he could feel worse about the night before. Had it been out of some perverse sense of obligation? “ _I was already in your debt_ ,” Maedhros had said before he fled and, in some ways, a severed Orcish head was not as much of an explanation as he had hoped.

Maedhros did not let go of his hand but nor did he look at him. “You’re very handsome, as you well know.”

“I did not ask if I was handsome.”

“Yes,” Maedhros said at last, with no small effort. “Yes, I want you. I love you and I’m sorry if I made you think that I did not.” He clenched his jaw. “Whatever else they say of me, they do not say I am a coward. I shall not let them start.”

Fingon could have laughed for joy and for relief. “I should hope no one is going to say anything of this. I doubt your people would approve.”

“They’ve followed me through kinslaying and abdication; what’s this compared to those? They might even be pleased if I imply it’s some ploy to gain influence in Barad Eithel.”

Fingon did laugh then. “How do I know it’s not?”

“If this were truly one of my schemes I wouldn’t have spent the better part of the day brooding. And likely more people would have died.”

“You are astonishingly bad at seduction, I admit.”

“And yet you’ve fallen for it twice already.”

“Never again. Now stop changing the subject and take your clothes off.” His tone made it a request and not an order. He knew that if he were any less direct Maedhros would keep them talking in circles all night.

“As my lord commands,” Maedhros said and set to it. Only he could make stripping seem an act of defiance. Once he had been slender and well-formed as one of his mother’s sculptures. Now the body revealed as he peeled back the layers of mail and leather was hard and sinewy, striped with scars. Fingon, who delighted in tall horn bows and swords of lethal sharpness, in all things made for war, had to bite down on his tongue to keep from moaning his appreciation.

About Maedhros’ ribs a bruise was blooming, pink and purple dappled with red grazes where the links of mail had pressed into the skin. Further down, across his thigh, lay the thin, dark line of another bruise, the one that Fingon had placed there the night before. Maedhros, still defiant despite the flush colouring his cheeks, followed his gaze and said, “It was well struck.”

Fingon extended his hand and, at Maedhros’ nod, let his fingers trace the line of the injury. “Does it hurt?”

“Press harder.”

Fingon did and felt the fine hairs lift beneath his fingertips. He slid his hand higher, over lines of scar tissue like silver etching upon the bronze of his skin, to stop just below his groin. Maedhros’ cock was long and lean as the rest of him and it was difficult to think past the need to touch and taste. “How should we do this then?” he said.

“Fingon the Valiant wants to stop and plan?” Maedhros gave him a look that was more speculative than seductive. “Take me.”

“Is that a good idea?” Parts of him certainly thought so.

“Not in the slightest,” said Maedhros, who clearly hadn’t missed the way his face had flushed or his cock filled at the thought. “Is that going to stop you?”

“Has it ever?” It felt good to be known so completely. “We’ll need something-”

“In that chest.”

Hasty riffling through the contents turned up several daggers, a shortsword, a selection of rags, whetstones and, at the very bottom, a vial of blade oil.

“Do you often hone your swords in bed?” Fingon asked, eyebrows raised.

“Where better?” Maedhros said mildly. “Sometimes I even think of you.”

“Is that flirtation or a death threat?”

“Take it as you will. Take _me_ as you will.” He lay back on the bed, spreading his legs enough so that Fingon could sit between them. Maedhros’ face was set in a look of grim determination and if his limbs were relaxed it was clearly only through a deliberate act of will. It should not have been, objectively speaking, an appealing sight but still it made Fingon’s mouth dry up and his erection twitch.

He uncapped the oil. Maedhros looked away, caught himself and looked back, frowning at himself or at Fingon or at the whole ridiculous situation. Fingon’s hands were trembling with eagerness or trepidation and he did nothing to arrest that, let some of the liquid spill over his bare thighs as he coated his fingers. That made Maedhros frown a little less.

“Easy,” he said.

He was so very predictable. Fingon smiled and leant forward to kiss him.

It was not like the night before. Fingon would not _let_ it be like that. He was not, by nature, slow or careful about anything but this seemed worth taking the time over. He kept the kiss sweet and teasing. Then he set about exploring the rest of Maedhros’ body, mapping it with lips and tongue and not, he thought with a barely suppressed laugh, an alidade in sight. He kissed the bruises upon his side and thigh, the tips of his notched ears, the pale, puckered mark where a nipple had been cut away.

“If you intend to do that to every last one of my scars, we shall be here all night,” Maedhros said. He bore Fingon’s attentions with a quiet stoicism that would have been believable were it not for the rising colour in his cheeks and the darkening of his eyes. That and, when Fingon slid his hand down to his cock, he found him half hard already.

Fingon kissed him on the mouth again to quiet him and set about stroking him, bringing to bear all the tricks he had ever used to satisfy himself. He had never before attempted to coax pleasure from another’s body and found it far more gratifying than even his most shameful fantasies. Maedhros was not a responsive lover, deliberately so, which made his every stifled gasp and twitch all the more delightful. Fingon had always loved a challenge.

He was rewarded for all his efforts when Maedhros cursed and pulled back to say, “Just do it.”

“I’m supposed to be the impatient one,” said Fingon.

“Does it please you to torture me?” Maedhros said. His voice was perfectly level but the effort clearly cost him.

Fingon prodded one of the scars that criss-crossed Maedhros’ stomach with mingled exasperation and affection. “Tell me to stop and I shall,” he countered.

Maedhros said nothing.

Fingon laughed and brought their mouths together again while his hand slipped lower to brush his entrance. “Are you sure?”

“Do it,” Maedhros said flatly.

Fingon pressed in slowly with one finger, his eyes on Maedhros’ face, which stayed expressionless. Maedhros’s breathing was slow and controlled but Fingon could feel the tension in his body and his eyes were wild with mingled want and fear.

“Keep going,” he said when Fingon hesitated. And then, as Fingon opened his mouth to protest, Maedhros caught him by his braids and dragged him down into another searching kiss, filled with a kind of desperation Fingon had seldom been permitted to see. Fingon answered him in kind, with all his centuries of heartache and need.

He could hardly stop after that.

Fingon worked him open carefully, halting once to fetch more oil, for determination could only do so much against a body’s resistance to intrusion. If Maedhros felt any pain he hid it - of course he hid it - until Fingon added a third finger and found a new angle. Then suddenly his hand clenched in Fingon’s hair and his breath came in a hiss.

“Did I hurt you?”

“No.” He bared his teeth. “I can bear pain better than...than-”

Fingon twisted his fingers again. “Than that?” he asked innocently as Maedhros gasped and shuddered beneath him. “Perhaps I won’t bother with the rest. It would be a fitting revenge for last night to take you apart like this - single-handed, you might say.”

“ _Don’t_. Fingon- no. Don’t.”

“Are you asking me to stop?” He wasn’t. That was quite obvious.

Maedhros drew his breath in sharply and said more calmly; “Do as you will.”

“Well then,” Fingon said, sitting back. Until then he had been content to ignore his own growing arousal but no more. Not with fire blazing through him with every beat of his heart, with his cock so hard he ached. Not with Maedhros, whom he had wanted all his life, laid out on the bed before him, grim and watchful and eager almost in spite of himself. He slicked his cock slowly and deliberately, moaning aloud at the sensation and because it made Maedhros roll his eyes and sigh with frustration.

“Haven’t you waited long enough?” he said and dragged Fingon down atop him once more.

Still Fingon hesitated. “Do you trust me?”

“Did I not say as much?” Maedhros said, the words coming out a snarl. He collected himself somewhat and said more gently, “Fingon. _Of course_ I trust you.”

Fingon thrust into him then, harder and faster than he had meant to, and Maedhros’ thighs came up to grip his hips and his nails drew lines of sweet fire across his right shoulder. His body was hot against him and around him, and it was all Fingon could do not to spill into him immediately. He held still a moment, to claw back his control and to revel in the sensation of it; Maedhros’ strong, lean arms pulling him close, the tightness about his cock, the fair, familiar face flushed with desire.

It was a long moment, long enough for Maedhros to lean up and nip at Fingon’s ear, making him startle and then burst into laughter. “Oh, very well,” he said. “I can take a hint.”

He rocked his hips tentatively and, when that was greeted with a sigh from Maedhros and a bright burst of pleasure thrumming through his own body, he thrust harder. Taking his weight upon his right arm, he let the other hand slip down between their bodies to close on Maedhros’ cock once more. That earnt him a groan, swiftly stifled, and Maedhros’ eyes falling almost shut.

It felt no less powerful than the night before, no less right and no less dangerous for all that there were no longer swords involved. Maedhros was become hard and unyielding in so many ways but in this he had made himself vulnerable for what he claimed was spite but Fingon knew was not. The restraint was all gone out of him now; his hips rose to meet every one of Fingon’s thrusts and his moans were no longer bitten back. He was hard and slick in Fingon’s grip and his hand clutched Fingon’s buttock, urging him on.

“Fingon,” Maedhros said, and he sounded desperate. “I need- I can’t-”

Upon the battlefield Fingon had rallied his flagging soldiers and lead them to feats they never dreamt they were capable of. He had quelled fear and uncertainty and held men from a rout by the force of his own nerve. Now he took Maedhros’ left hand with his right and pressed it to the bed, weaving their fingers together. “I have you,” he said. “Let go. Trust me.”

Even then, naked in his bed, their bodies joined, Fingon still doubted that he did. But Maedhros was brave and stubborn and, in this at least, completely honest. Fingon felt him choose, felt his body arch beneath him, muscles clenching - Fingon would bear new bruises on his hips - and gasped as the grip on his hand turned painful. Maedhros made a choked, helpless sound in the back of his throat and Fingon felt him spill against his belly, warm as blood.

There was a strange sort of victory in that and it spurred Fingon on, brought him his own release in a few more rough thrusts. It was not the violent maelstrom that had torn through him the night before but the slow, inevitable swell and break of a wave against the shore. Fingon lay atop him a few moments longer, warm and hazy with afterglow and a growing sense of satisfaction, and then pulled out and rolled over to collapse beside him. Maedhros groaned a little at the movement but did not otherwise respond. His lips were bruised - more gentle than the night before did not mean _gentle_ \- and his hair was a sweaty tangle and his eyes were a dazed, misty grey. He looked ruined and, for once, Fingon was glad to see him so.

“By all rights I should leave you like this,” he said. “It would only be fair.” He did not, though, because princes should not be petty and because it suited him very well to hold Maedhros in his arms and brush his hair back from his face as he fought the trembling from his limbs and forced his breathing back under control.

“I did not think that it would be like that,” Maedhros said when he had collected himself.

“You did not expect to enjoy it, you mean. I did warn you I wanted more than a chance to prove the Enemy a fool, though that was also sweet.”

“You proved me one as well. Not a bad night’s work.” Maedhros sat up - with some difficulty, as Fingon was reluctant to let go - and selected one of the cleaner rags from the selection in the weapons chest. He set about cleaning up the worst of the mess they’d made.

“Leave it,” Fingon said, “and come back here.”

“You’ll thank me in the morning. If you do intend to stay.” He did not look at Fingon as he said it but he did put aside the cloth and come back to lie beside him.

Fingon settled into the crook of his arm, tucking his head beneath his chin and throwing an arm across his chest to keep him in place. “You mustn’t think you’re entirely forgiven, but it’s very late and I am a long way from my rooms. And besides, your bed is bigger.”

Maedhros flicked one of Fingon’s braids out of his face. “I should warn you that I snore. And sometimes scream.”

“I _know_ you snore. How many times have we gone camping together?”

“More than I have fingers to count.”

“Well that is saying very little,” Fingon said. Maedhros wore his hair too short to braid, as he had ever since the mountain, but it seemed a fine idea to try anyway. Fingon began twining the copper strands about his fingers. “I don’t mind it though. Aredhel snores. Snored.”

“Wherever she is, no doubt she snores still.”

Fingon thought of the Ice again, lying awake listening to his sister’s heavy breathing and Turgon mumbling in his sleep, desperately grateful for the proof they hadn’t frozen in the night. “No doubt. Don’t _you_ go anywhere.”

“Should I swear to it?” Maedhros said with a grim little smile.

“How well that would end! I suppose with you dying horribly in some battle and then haunting me forever,” Fingon said, giving up on his tangled plait to start a new one. “It would be horribly romantic.”

“Maglor could make a song of it,” Maedhros said. “But no, I am for the darkness everlasting; you must be the ghost.”

“Luckily I’m of like complexion with Aredhel - white becomes me.”

“And as a wraith you wouldn’t take up quite so much of the bed. Or do whatever it is you’re doing to my hair,” Maedhros said, brushing out the snarl Fingon had made of it. “I begin to see the advantages.”

“I also wouldn’t be able to do this,” Fingon said, rolling over to lie atop him again and bring their mouths together.

“Oh very well,” Maedhros conceded, a little breathlessly, when he drew back. “I suppose I do like you better living.”

“Accept your fate then, for you shan’t be rid of me easily,” Fingon said and kissed him again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao sorry everyone. I've posted some [cut scenes](http://thelioninmybed.tumblr.com/post/144862240482/delicate-pleasures) on my tumblr and [here's](http://thelioninmybed.tumblr.com/post/147352792597/an-artists-interpretation-of-chapter-two-of) an illustration of the werewolf fight.


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